My tardy comments on the game, though I only saw the first forty minutes (I might have turned it off anyway, but I had something at noon US time). 1. Credit to Liverpool, who looked far better in every way: better players, better manager, better workrate. If you were to pick a combined team based on the first 40 minutes, the only Spur who would have made it would have been Chadli, who was excellent, and by far our best player. 2. This is the third or fourth (and last) time by my count AVB has ended a good run with a nasty lineup surprise. He lost his job because he doesn't seem to know the first rule of strategy, which is never change a winning game. If a lineup is working don't change it, unless there's some pressing reason. Not starting someone who's been your best player three weeks running is beyond bizarre. Even so, starting Dembele as CM would have been something less than insane, considering he looked good going forward against Sunderland, and began his career as a striker. But Paulinho, who's never played there to my knowledge, and in a game of this magnitude? Sure enough, he tried a long range shot with his first touch, to avoid doing anything too embarrassing. When Holtby came in, he almost instantly created two goals, one for Chadli, and one for himself. And yet: I doubt a sane lineup would have changed the outcome much. Liverpool looked that much better, and scored 4/5 after Holtby came in. You never know, though, what removing the linchpin of your team may do in a game, especially a big game. It may be the players, as well as the fans, never recovered from not seeing Holtby's name on the lineup sheet. 3. The most notable part of the game was that Liverpool seemed to have twice as many players--they always seemed to have both 2/3 or 3/4 players nearest the ball, and more free players in the rest of the field. Funny. If it came down to a single problem with us, it was the continual attempts by good dribblers (Dembele, Paulinho) to dribble through three players, partly, it seemed, because they never had anyone nearby to pass to. I can't understand why players weren't providing the easy pass to dribblers; why they seemed so reluctant to get near the ball in general, for that matter. 4. This game was between a team that kept their best player and one who sold theirs. 5. On the bright side, it seems to me it's clear who nine of our best 11 are. Walker Chiriches Vertonghen Rose 2/3 of Paulinho/Dembele/Capoue (don't think Sandro's completely back yet) Chadli Holtby Lennon Soldado/Defoe (?)
